The 2022 Canadian Grand Prix is ​​about to kick off. The drivers and teams are preparing to start the ninth round of the 2022 Formula 1 season. With Max Verstappen leading the championship at the moment, with a total of 150 points and a difference of 21 points from second place (Sergio Perez), Red Bull hopes to further extend the advantage they currently have over their main rivals, who have been Ferrari. The Austrian team has a total of 279 points, while Ferrari has 199. We have already heard how the Ferrari team principal, Mattia Binotto, has mentioned that winning this Grand Prix is ​​not their priority, but it would be to continue developing his F1-75 to fight the Austrians again.

On the other hand, we will focus on the AlphaTauri drivers. Pierre Gasly reaches the ninth round of the world championship with 16 points and in tenth place, although tied with the two-time world champion, Fernando Alonso. The French driver managed to maintain fifth position at the last Azerbaijan Grand Prix with only the two Red Bulls and the two Mercedes ahead of him. Likewise, his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, remains in fifteenth position with 11 points. The Japanese driver will be competing for the first time here at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada. These were some of the statements that AlphaTauri drivers mentioned.

As for the new FIA regulations about the bouncing, Pierre Gasly stated: “I’m happy they took it seriously and took measures as fast as possible. At the end of the day, we are the ones in the car having to deal with all these impacts, pains that it [the bouncing] creates in our back. Happy they [the FIA] understood the message and reacted quickly.” He also affirmed that he also felt some pain after the race but recovered with physiotherapy sessions. “My back was hurting. I’m still feeling tight. If we want to go forward, we clearly need to find solutions for the best of all drivers. Last year I had also physio sessions but they were normally to prevent anything and release all the pressure.”

“I’m just happy that they understood that this [the bouncing] is a serious topic for all of us. We’re not here just to complain. We’re all trying to push it [the sport] forward.”

Pierre finished P5 during his last race in Baku, he stated that is really pleased with his team and with the performance of his car. “I’m really pleased. We had a lot of talks and we’re really trying to get everyone onboard. And it’s challenging because in these situations, people cannot lose motivation.”

But not everything is perfect for the Frenchman, as he has qualified the fast corners of the tracks as their enemies: “Slow corners are our friends, fast corners are our enemies. If it rains this weekend is not a bad thing for us. We’ll se how that goes but clearly Baku is a 90-degree turn, second gear, […]. We know the philosophy of our car and I think that’s the best thing to extract the maximum performance out of it. Here there are medium speed corners and that’s what we tend to lack but hopefully at some point of the next few months that will have a cure, but right now, we just have to deal with that.”

As for Yuki Tsunoda, the Japanese driver did not feel the pain from the bouncing cars at Baku. “For me, I didn’t feel that. Either way it was ok for me to be honest.”

“Hopefully we’ll find the solution but not compromising our performance.” The Japanese stated.

Mick Schumacher recently stated that for him, it was a like a first year in Formula 1 since the cars are behaving very differently in comparison from last year. For Yuki, this is not true as he states this is his second year even though these new 2022 cars are very different from last year. “For me is second year. We’re using the same steering, the same engine, it does behave a lot different but for me, I learnt a lot of things last year and it also made me get another step as a driver. Probably the situation changed massively but for me, I didn’t struggle much.”

MotorLat asked him how much time he needs in order to start pushing his car at a new track, as we need to remember that this is his third new venue that he’ll race in, he answered: “Depends on the track, but almost always is just a free practice to understand the track. Then probably in FP2 just need to start finding the last few tenths.” Finally, as Pierre told us that he is hoping for rain, Yuki is neutral on that aspect as he is new at this track, either dry or wet.